


the right choice

by pineneedlepants



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst with a Happy Ending, BAMF Allison, BAMF Stiles, Dark Stiles, FBI Agent Stiles Stilinski, Hurt Derek, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Kidnapped Derek, M/M, Mechanic Derek, Warning: Kate Argent, hunter stiles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-29
Updated: 2017-07-29
Packaged: 2018-12-08 16:11:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11650107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pineneedlepants/pseuds/pineneedlepants
Summary: Stiles thinks he’s a good hunter. Morally ambiguous maybe, a little grey from the edges from a legal point, but overall a decent human being. He’s got a dozen or so kills under his belt, none which he’s proud of, but he does what he does for a reason.So it’s understandable when Allison calls him for a favor to hunt down a bunch of Blemmyes’ with her aunt Kate, and Stiles gracefully accepts, that heflips the fuck outwhen he finds his own favorite mechanic locked in a cage in Kate’s basement.Jesus. Derek Hale couldn’t be furthest from a feral werewolf. The man is amarshmallow.With phenomenal control.Kate has some owning up to do.





	the right choice

The smell of wolfsbane and ammonia fills Stiles’ nostrils as he enters the house, trailing carefully after Allison. He maps out the entrances and exits, getting an idea of the layout of the house. He’s never been in this part of the town. It mostly consists of newly built design houses with small yards and stylish interior. 

Every house is painted in a non-descript, non-offensive hues of grays and whites, followed with big windows and perfectly cut gardens. There are no children’s toys in sight in any of the houses they’ve passed, even when Stiles knows there to be families living down the street.

Kate’s house is as cold and filled with steel levels as he’s always imagined it to be. There isn’t a spec of dust anywhere, no dirty dishes in the sink, no clothes or books or papers haphazardly left anywhere uncleanly on sight. It’s such a huge contrast to Stiles’ apartment, he’s kind of afraid to even walk on the pristine white floor. 

He sees multiple switches hidden in the smartly placed nooks, camouflaged as everyday items. He also know exactly what hides behind those moving pieces, the amount of weapons and poisonous substances conceived all over a little discontenting. Kate clearly expects to be attacked every second of every day.

There isn’t much of showing around though. Allison leads him immediately into the basement. He follows blankly, face carefully schooled into that bored, neutral expression. He’s come to find that he needs that cover when handling Kate. She takes every miniscule sign of fear or terror or any kind of vulnerability and runs with it. She knows exactly how to ruin a person from the roots, and Stiles takes no chances. 

Especially when all he feels towards her is disgust and Hulk-levels of rage. He knows her to be a psychopath, has followed multiple leads to her that have gone cold. Murders. Arson cases. Missing person’s. Domestic violence. Disturbing behaviour around any and all neighborhoods she’s ever lived in. And she’s savage. She enjoys killing people in a way that Stiles will never understand, and hopes he never will. Because when he thinks of himself as a person who follows the code, who only kills beings that are non-sentient and violent, Kate will kill anything that she perceives as monstrous. An abomination.

He hopes she’s never killed in cold blood, but he knows for certain she has.

‘’Allison!’’ Kate greets cheerily, pulling her into an enthusiastic hug. She returns it, even when she looks like she doesn’t want to, and greets her back. 

Kate’s gaze lands on Stiles, probably because he was walking behind Allison, and because Kate takes great pleasure in trying to get Stiles to return her flirting. She used to do it more blatantly when he was much younger, barely fifteen summers, and he’s eternally grateful for his father for intervening, protecting his innocence and childhood. 

Though sometimes, in the dark of the night, he’s plagued by thoughts of those children his father couldn’t save. Couldn’t protect from Kate’s perfectly manicured nails, those calculating eyes and the abuse she bestowed upon them, easily manipulating the hapless kids.

‘’Kate,’’ Stiles nods, descending the final steps downstairs.

‘’Stiles,’’ she drawls. ‘’How nice of you to join us. Ally, I had no idea you called Stiles with us.’’

‘’Uh,’’ Allison looks at her aunt blankly. ‘’I thought you said you needed more men? Blemmyes’ are pretty vicious and super hard to kill. The more manpower the better, right?’’

Kate nods. ‘’Right! Although Stiles here doesn’t have much of that muscle to speak of, hm? More of a shooter, aren’t you, Stiles?’’

Shrugging, non-plussed, he answers easily, ‘’I’ll do whatever position you design for me. Frankly, I don’t mind not getting in the thick of those cannibals, at all. They’re fucking disgusting.’’

Allison laughs, walking deeper into the cellar. ‘’I know right? No brains equals brute use of strength and no feelings of pain. Death only by hacking those things into multiple pieces and doing a warming bonfi - ‘’

Allison stops mid-sentence and mid-step, tension gathering in her frame. Her voice, when she speaks again, is low and cold. ‘’Aunt Kate,’’ she says, turning to face the two of them, ‘’What have you done?’’

Stiles blinks. He’s maybe seen Allison that angry twice in his life. She’s a happy person. A real Disney princess. She doesn’t do anger, except in very exceptional situations. Kate, for her part, looks totally innocent.

‘’What do you mean?’’ she asks, amused.

Stiles walks past her, past Allison, to see what she saw. The room seems pretty normal to him when he takes it in. There are tables and chairs, a mini fridge, a wall of weapon arsenal and a TV. The lights are low, so he doesn’t realize the room continues to the dark corner, not until something in there moves. And when he sees it, his own rage bubbles up so fast it almost makes him dizzy.

‘’Oh,’’ Kate laughs, a little shyly, fucking playing it up.  _ ‘’That _ ,’’ she says. She shrugs. ‘’It was self-defense. He attacked me. He’s feral. I contained him and brought him here, trying to figure out whether or not to put him down.’’

Stiles walks slowly, eyeing the immediate area around him. There are shackles and a wall of electric fence nailed down onto the tile, a machine designed to send out electrical waves connected to the metal. There are also multiple implements, knives and tasers and other horrifying objects placed down onto several trays, most of them filthy with blood and other questionable substances.

The worst is the tiny cage. Stiles knows it must be coated in wolfsbane, judging by the blisters on the man’s naked back that’s hunched inside. The metal bars are connected to the electrical machine, though it’s not turned on.

His anger turns to horror when he sees who exactly is occupying the small space.

Derek’s harried and terrified face looks up at him when he approaches, unable to move away at all when Stiles crouches beside him. Derek’s been bound tightly, arms behind his back, his whole torso arranged so that he’s doubled over, on his knees, crammed inside with the cage touching him everywhere, painful welts mapping his skin.

‘’Hey there, buddy,’’ he says softly. ‘’I’m gonna get you out of here. How about that, hm?’’

Derek doesn’t answer. Instead, he lowers his head, flinching, resigned to his hopeless fate. He probably thinks Stiles is in cahoots with Kate. Stiles does not blame him. He smells like wolfsbane and ammunition, and the fact that he’s here and in clearly in know of the supernatural, Stiles has got to be the bad guy. Hell, if he were in Derek’s shoes,  _ Stiles  _ would think Stiles is the bad guy.

But there’s trust there. Stiles has spent more than half of his paychecks to repair his Jeep, being a loyal customer of Derek’s for a two solid years. They’ve had a couple good chats, and Stiles knows more about Derek than he does of his own father at the moment. 

He may or may not have also spied on Derek’s legal file. Illegally. Through his father, the sheriff. But hey, Stiles works for the FBI department half-time. If he were to check a guy’s background, both of them would immediately get flagged down and Stiles would very much like to keep his job. It pays the bills handsomely and he can do it from home. IT work never sounds too fancy, but boy, the systems Stiles works with, he might as well get a job from NASA. Maybe in the future.

‘’I am going to take this man out of this cage,’’ Stiles announces loudly, over Allison’s spitfire, rising up from the crouch and Kate looks over.

‘’That mutt is a danger to public,’’ she says, annoyed. ‘’I’m handling him. You just leave him there and we’ll go take out the fucking Blemmyes’. I can handle one omega werewolf. He’ll be dead before you know it.’’

‘’You won’t touch him ever again. This  _ man _ ,’’ Stiles emphasises angrily, ‘’is innocent. A werewolf maybe, but he has not endangered any lives. He lives so under the radar that if you didn’t know he’s a Hale, you wouldn’t believe him to be a wolf at all. His control is phenomenal and he hasn’t shifted in public, ever. Fuck, I almost live in his neighbor and all people have to say about him is that he’s a sweetheart. In what fucking universe would you think I’d believe a lie so totally blatantly see-through? We have a fucking  _ code _ , Kate! And this man does not fall onto a category that would entail a fucking execution.’’

Sneering, Kate rounds on him. ‘’You ask him to flash his eyes.’’ 

Derek whimpers quietly at that. Stiles chances a glance and frowns.

‘’What?’’

Kate’s lips curve into a smirk. It’s an evil, cruel smile she wears when she thinks she’s on the right. ‘’Ask him to flash his eyes. Your little  _ sweetheart  _ isn’t as innocent as you’re painting him to be.’’

Stiles restrains from rolling his eyes. ‘’For fuck’s sake -  Just because a werewolf has blue eyes doesn’t mean they killed someone in cold blood. If we went by percentage, there are more mercy killings followed by blue eyes than there are murders. Furthermore, it could’ve been a self-defense, or protecting someone else, or fuck, even an accident. Blue eyes do not equal murderer.’’

Then his voice goes stony. ‘’But you know all of that, don’t you Kate?’’ Stiles eyes one of the knives on the table and takes it, fiddling it in his hands.

‘’You just need an excuse, even a made up one, to be able to lay the killing blow. And you don’t need it for  _ you _ . You just need the cover, the alibi, if someone was to catch you doing something you shouldn’t be doing.’’

Kate looks at him, and then realizes that Allison has gone from her side and has taken a stand in front of the door. Her expression turns just a little nervous, like this is an outcome she never would’ve expected. 

Stiles flips the knife, tossing it in air and catching it between his fingers. ‘’You know, I’ve compiled quite the list of your offenses. Of course, all the proof I need for those lay within your confessions. You’ve always kept yourself busy. There’s quite a trail on you, spanning over decades of cases gone cold after you being interviewed, mostly as a suspect, sometimes as witness. You were even a victim once. Remember that?’’

Kate says nothing. Stiles smirks, expecting it. ‘’Thought so.’’ Then he flips the knife again.

''You enjoy it. Somewhere in that deep, dark, twisted place of yours, you get pleasure in drenching your hands in blood. You get off on tainting the pure, innocent life that catches your eye. You are a psychopath through and through, and honestly, you'd be better off dead than alive. I've thought so for awhile now.''

Allison makes a surprised sound, making Stiles sigh. ''I've always just let you slip through my fingers. I think none of us are better than you, since we've let you rampage around for so long. I know for sure Chris won't stop you. He's got the little four year old Katie in his mind that could do no wrong. But I've seen you out there, I've seen the damage you've done. And these days, you do more harm than good.''

He half turns, throwing the knife as hard as he can against the padlock that secures Derek's cage door. It hits the target, damaging the lock immediately, metal creaking as the side cracks and splinters, dropping onto the floor. Derek won't be able to open the door himself when he's bound like that, but it'll at least offer the illusion of escape he's getting soon enough.

After Stiles deals with Kate.

Before she can turn around, or even take a step forward to stop Stiles from releasing Derek, Allison comes behind Kate and hits her square on the head, making her eyes roll back and her body topple down in a heap of limbs. Stiles offers a grin. ''Thanks, man. I was getting kind of tired of her.''

Allison looks pale, fine tremors shaking her hands. ''Did you mean all of what you said?''

Stiles gets back to Derek, opening his cage door and getting a set of keys to open the wolf's shackles. He nods. ''Kate has a very defined and very disturbing file at the FBI. She’s named as ‘The Huntress’ and there’s a reward, an actual monetary reward for anyone who can pinpoint even one lead to connect her to a crime she committed, and from there, the FBI can pretty much roll with anything to get her behind the bars. She’s just too damn clever. She knows how to hide bodies and to dispose of them, how to evade police and forge alibis. Gerard’s taught her well.’’

‘’So all this time, all those nights I’ve spent trying to make sense of Kate and her methods, she’s just been a murdering psychopath this whole time and there has never been rhyme or reason to her doings?’’

Locating the keys, Stiles starts fiddling with the locks on Derek’s bound arms. He grimaces. ‘’Pretty much. She’s killed supes that have turned out to be humans after all, claiming that they’d attacked her and that her hand had been forced that way. And she loves children. In a very bad way. In a way that, should there be any proof, anyone to step up and tell us their story of her, she’d be fucking executed. Not necessarily by the government, but her inmates or hunter buddies, or fuck,  _ me _ .’’

Allison breathes sharply. ‘’You’re going to kill her,’’ she says without emotion.

Stiles helps Derek out of the small cage, offering his body as a shield as well as a sturdy pole to lean on, and nods to Allison. ‘’Yes. And I’m going to have to ask you to leave. Because after I get the story out of Derek here, of how he ended up here, what she did to him, and perhaps what she did to his family as a whole, there won’t be enough mercy in me to last for her sake. She won’t be getting anything from me except pain and eventually, death.’’

Allison has nothing to say to that, so she doesn’t. Instead, she turns away from him, signaling Stiles to take Derek out while she stands guard over Kate’s unconscious body.

Derek’s legs won’t carry him, so Stiles half drags the poor man out of the basement and up to Kate’s apartment. The wolf keeps shivering, weakened and no doubt humiliated, and Stiles feels the rage bubbling under the surface again. The houses around are dark, as is the yard, so Stiles quickly shuffles Derek into his comfortable and familiar Jeep, wanting Derek as far away from the house as he can get him. And the fact that Derek just lets him, tells him all he needs to know about the wolf’s state of mind. He situates him in the passenger seat.

‘’Here,’’ Stiles says, offering Derek his jacket and a towel he keeps in his Jeep. ‘’To warm you up a little. I’ma get back a little bit to make sure Kate stays where she is, and then I’m gonna take you home, okay?’’

Derek stares at him blankly. Stiles can tell when he’s dissociating though, so he nods, like this is how it’s supposed to be, and returns to the basement. He knows Derek won’t leave the car. He’s too weak, too vulnerable, and really, all Stiles wants is to protect his favorite mechanic. He’s gonna shower Derek with love and affection and make sure he’s gonna come down from this a little better than Derek obviously has from other past experiences.

While he was busy dragging Derek up, Allison has gotten busy. She’s tied Kate efficiently, taken all of her hidden weapons from her person and made her hang on her arms from one of the hooks in the center of the, what Stiles now likes to call it, torture chamber.

‘’Thanks,’’ he says to her, and Allison looks away.

‘’Tell me when you’ve killed her,’’ she says quietly. ‘’I need to know when I can. . . When I can finally be done with her.’’

Stiles narrows his eyes. ‘’Okay. You’re not gonna watch, or do something other stupid thing, like, say, call your hunter buddies?’’

Allison lets out a breath. ‘’I loved her. As an aunt, she was the best, you know? But as a person. .  . Now that I know what she’s done. . . What I always thought was so off of her. . . You’re doing the right thing. I can’t do it. I want to. I want to tear her to fucking shreds, you know?’’

Stiles looks at her blankly. ‘’Why?’’

‘’Because I will never, I can never, condone what she did. And I know Derek, you know? I knew his family. And all this time I’ve thought that the fire was so strange. Why wouldn’t a bunch of weres get out of a burning building? Why migrate to the basement, to certain death?’’

‘’Because Kate blocked the exits and made a mountain ash circle to ensure everyone stayed in.’’

‘’Exactly,’’ Allison says, bitter. ‘’She killed them. Humans and supes alike. I was friends with half of the pack. I loved them. And I wanted to help Derek, to be there for him afterwards, but I he couldn’t understand why he kept flinching, cringing away from me, from Kate too.’’

‘’He knew. He was a victim of hers.’’

Allison nods, tears streaming down her face. ‘’She used him. He was my friend and she used that for her benefit. To abuse him. To ruin his life. And there’s nothing I can do to fix it. So no, Stiles. I won’t be calling anyone. Because when you’re done?’’

She looks him in the eyes, her gaze fierce and determined. ‘’I will help you burn her body and hide it so deep into the lake that even the water nymphs won’t go as deep. May she rot in hell.’’

A wide grin plasters itself on Stiles’ face. ‘’You got it, boss!’’

He cracks his knuckles. ‘’Time to work this devil into the ground she belongs to.’’

Allison closes the basement door when the water hits Kate’s face and she gasps herself awake.

 

Derek’s actually asleep when Stiles gets back to the Jeep some five hours later. The morning sun is rousing, soft rays starting to rise from the horizon, and Stiles knows he needs to get out of here before the neighborhood wakes up.

The wolf startles awake when Stiles cranks the key into the slot and the car purrs to life. He’s covered in blood on his arms and the pants of his legs, and there’s hardness on his face Derek’s never seen before. 

‘’Hey,’’ Stiles says softly. ‘’You okay?’’

Derek shakes his head. Stiles seems to expect this answer because he sighs. ‘’Me neither. But. I’ve got some waffle batter at home, ready to be whisked into actual tooth-rotting waffles, and some really dark brew coffee.’’ The man chances a glance at Derek. ‘’You game? We could totally talk about my car and my job and your job and your everyday life and ignore this whole hunter mess for awhile. At least until both of us have gotten some sleep in us, and you’ve healed your wounds.’’

He makes a face. ‘’Well. Physical ones anyway. And then I’m hoping, because I’m feeling a tad manic here with the end of an adrenaline rush, that we could get coffee sometime. That is a date. And we could talk totally mundane things and then have hot sex on the bed if you’re up to it.’’

Derek clears his throat. ‘’Waffles sound.. Good. Coffee too. Um. The date too I guess? But, I have, uh. Issues. With. Intimacy. So.’’

‘’So no sex at all or sex after six month anniversary?’’

‘’The uh, latter?’’

Stiles’ shoulders relax. ‘’Okay, cool. We can totally talk this all over at our date. But now, I want to go home, shower, eat and take a nap. With you, if you’re cool with that. No pressure or anything, I can totally take you to your pack or something if you’d rather get your daily dose of hugs from them instead.’’

Derek’s quiet for a few moments before answering quietly, ‘’I don’t have a pack.’’

‘’Okay. Well. I give a mean hug and offer platonic cuddles so. What do you say?’’

‘’Okay.’’

‘’Okay?’’

‘’Yeah. Okay.’’

 

They manage to make the waffles and eat them, before falling asleep on Stiles’ bed. Stiles gets a text during the afternoon that Allison has taken care of the Blemmyes’ and that Stiles shouldn’t worry. He sends her back a thumbs up emoji.

He can chill for now. No bad guys on the horizon, just a really good guy sleeping next to him. A man he plans to woo with all he has, and treat him with the delicacy and respect Derek deserves.

 

He’s good.

**Author's Note:**

> Not beta read. Thanks for reading!
> 
> If I missed any tags, let me know!


End file.
